


back to you

by gayety



Category: HINAPIA (Band), PRISTIN (Band)
Genre: Canon Compliant, Disbandment, Emotional Constipation, F/F, Hopeful Ending, Idols, Mild Hurt/Comfort, Phone Calls & Telephones, Talking
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-21
Updated: 2020-02-21
Packaged: 2021-02-28 03:21:43
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,094
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22827088
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/gayety/pseuds/gayety
Summary: After Pristin, Nayoung gets a phone call and tries to figure it out.
Relationships: Im Nayoung/Kim Minkyung | Roa
Comments: 2
Kudos: 20





	back to you

Nayoung is lying on her hotel bed and flipping through all the tv channels when she gets the call. It’s her day off, and she is doing nothing. She’s gotten too used to it.

Her phone rings with the name "Roro" instead of an unfamiliar number. After all the news sites had announced the disbandment, she had wanted to change it back, but never got around to it. Roro. She stares at her phone, at the name, for a few rings before she figures she should answer.

"Hello?"

"Unnie, I need help," Minkyung's voice says. Nayoung has to wrack her brain for a reason this could be and thinks about the articles for the new group. Hinapia. Like all other groups she’s been in, the name stands for a higher goal. Minkyung's the leader.

"What for?" Nayoung asks, trying not to assume anything. Assuming is a dangerous thing to do in this line of work.

"Leadership." Oh, Nayoung thinks.

Minkyung used to be the subleader back then. Nayoung wonders if it feels like a promotion or like the opposite. She tries to imagine the Minkyung that's on the other end, short hair and upturned lips. Does she carry herself differently now? During Get It promotions, she had seemed so grown-up, but Nayoung remembers them as girls, trying to fit into their height and long limbs, staring up at the posters of After School in their dim practice room. Always wanting to replicate that same unknowable glamor. Nayoung has seen only a few photos of Hinapia Minkyung, but every single one is so unlike the Minkyung that she knows.

Nayoung sighs and puts the call on speaker, lying back on the mattress. Even at its firmest setting, she still feels unsteady. "Be yourself," she says, words half-formed, immature and seedling. "You're capable as you are."

Minkyung giggles, a sound that is familiar in a way that prickles at the back of her neck. "You think so?"

"You've always been."

“And you’ve always been too kind,” Minkyung says back. It stings a little, though it shouldn’t. Nayoung wishes it were true. Maybe then she would have gone in with the rest of them, instead of hopping to a new company all alone. Maybe it would have been a little easier, and Minkyung wouldn’t have to bear the weight of it quite so much.

“How is it, anyway?” Nayoung asks, shifting on the bed. Blue designs, reminiscent of roses, decorate the bedspread. She stares at them. “Being leader.”

“They’re good,” Minkyung says. “They’re all good. I just worry.” If I’m good enough, Nayoung finishes mentally. It's not an assumption.

“You started the group,” Nayoung says, trying to keep her tone even and so saying it too quickly. “You found the company and started the group. You’re good enough—better, even.”

Minkyung forces out something akin to a laugh. “You saw that?”

Nayoung stares at the bedspread some more, tracing the curves of the flowers. “I did.” Struggling without Pristin, without that label to wear or niche to fill. Sleeping most of the time because waking up to reality hurt too much. Is she thinking of Minkyung, or herself? A part of her wants to see Minkyung’s face, wants to see if she brightens or fades. Another part wishes she could go back a few seconds and unsay anything alluding to _then_. There’s a lull of static in the receiver. She could hang up and later pretend that the connection went wrong, but—

“You wanted it that bad, huh," she says. On the other end, Minkyung laughs again, the weariness finally floating through. The mark of a leader, Nayoung wants to say, but she doesn't.

"Of course I did," Minkyung replies, gentle, as if it's the most obvious thing in the world. "Didn't we all?"

Nayoung could say no to that, but once again, she doesn't say anything at all. She thinks about IOI and Pristin and about how she couldn’t bring herself to try again. “Maybe too much," she says after a moment. "Maybe I wanted it too much."

"It's not your fault." Minkyung shouldn't be able to catch it over the phone. Of course, Nayoung knows that it’s not her fault, that she had nothing to do with either disbandment. Her breath stops anyway, throat feeling too tight around the words she wants to say.

“Thanks,” she forces out, brushing the edge of her knuckles over the beginnings of tears.

Minkyung pauses. She sighs, soft and quiet. “Hey, was it like this?”

Nayoung isn’t sure if she means the disbandment or the leader position. “Yeah,” she says anyway. She thinks of the name on her phone and decides it’s better the way it is, if only for nostalgia. “You’ll get used to it soon, I promise.”

“Will I?” she asks, but it’s quiet and rhetorical. Almost as an aside, she adds, “I wish you were here.”

Nayoung feels the same, but she doesn’t know how to say it quite right. She hums an assent instead. “It gets quiet on your own.”

“How is it? Being solo?”

“Lonely,” Nayoung spills without thinking, and then she runs with her mistake. “I thought it would be easier to be on my own, but—” No matter how many staff members are with her, she’s still alone.

“Why didn’t you join a group?” Minkyung asks, all soft.

“I couldn’t do that, Minkyung-ah.” Loneliness is a small price to pay to not face the inevitable ending of an illusion.

Minkyung doesn’t say anything to that. For a brief second, Nayoung wonders if she wants to refute the statement, or if she’s about to hang up. “Oh,” Minkyung says.

Nayoung says nothing and stares at the blue roses. She was always reaching for the sun, trying to grasp something unattainable for her. Some things are not meant to be.

Minkyung breaks through the awkward silence, so gentle it feels like she disturbed nothing at all. “Can I call you again sometime?” She pauses, and Nayoung holds her breath to hear what she says next.

“I miss talking like we used to.” 

Back in IOI. Back when Minkyung would get frustrated or stressed from the load, when she would call Nayoung’s cell and Nayoung picked up as often as her schedule permitted. They talked for hours. Back in Pristin, calling at random, telling the other to fetch something minor. Sometimes calling for the sake of it. This is the first time they’ve talked since it all fell to pieces. Nayoung wants to say that she misses it, too.

“Yeah,” she says. “I’d like that.”

**Author's Note:**

> as soon as the news came out of minkyung mentioning her feelings post-disbandment, i just. Thought of nayoung. obviously idk what actually goes on but i Thought and so!! here we are


End file.
